Kids these days. What do they like? Well, they like movies, and they like celebrities. So a locally grown celebrity has thrown his name and his presence behind an event designed to get young people informed about what he sees as the downsides of the Northern Pass project.

Matt Bonner, a Concord High School graduate who plays for the San Antonio Spurs, is hosting a screening and discussion of Northern Trespass, a documentary about the potential impact of the proposed power transmission lines from Quebec to Deerfield.

Bonner has been a critic of the plan since it was announced in 2010, but he said that at the events he’s attended, he noticed the attendees’ ages skewed toward the retiree end of the spectrum.

“This is, if anything, more important to the younger generation because it’s going to affect them more than anything. . . . This project, if it were to happen, is going to be a part of their lives for longer, part of their kids’ lives, and their kids’ kids are going to have to live with this,” Bonner said.

“Besides, it could open up a Pandora’s box, setting a precedent, and if something like this can happen in our state, what’s to say more corporations aren’t going to come in with projects like this?”

The movie provides an overview of Northern Pass and the arguments against it, to counter what Bonner called the deep pockets of the companies behind the project.

“They have the money to put a heck of a PR campaign together and really try to push the information that they want pushed across to make the project look like somehow it will help our state,” he said.

“Once people get educated, it’s a no-brainer: They have to either bury (the transmission lines) or scrap it altogether, and the key is the awareness.”

Bonner has rented the main theater in Red River Theatres, where the film will be shown at 7 p.m. Wednesday. Bonner will stay after the film to moderate a question-and-answer session with filmmakers Jan Marvel and Michelle Vaughn. Tickets for the event are $5.

(Sarah Palermo can be reached at 369-3322 or spalermo@cmonitor.com or on Twitter @SPalermoNews.)

Both Keystone and Northern Pass are projects that have serious detrimental effects that reflect the increasing costs and extreme measures needed to obtain energy. I'd like to see more mention of the real environmental costs of Northern Pass--the fact that an area about the size of NH will eventually be flooded to provide the Northeast with electricity. The effects of the flooding represent the true environmental costs--the power lines crossing the Whites, while unsightly, are benign by comparison. The mining of the Alberta tar sands, and the carbon it will release, abetted by the Keystone XL pipeline, is an environmental disaster of monumental proportions. Both are unnecessary, in my opinion, if we choose wisely to embark on long overdue 'soft energy paths' and seriously undertake more intense conservation measures. Our national security will be the better for it, and so will our warming planet.

ItsaRepublic wrote:

07/20/2013

I agree with you on the Northern Pass, no lines should be run. Also, no windmills should dot the landscape as well. You are, however all wet on the Alberta tar sands, the Keystone pipeline and your call for alternative energy. There is no energy source which will provide the needed BTU output for our prosperity beyond fossil fuels. Now, if you want to develop alternative energy sources in the meantime....have at it.

Lucky48 wrote:

07/19/2013

Anyone interested in national security has to wonder why an energy corporation would choose vulnerable overhead lines when underground lines are so much more secure from weather and human intervention. It's not as if the idea is outlandish. Underground lines are marketed and installed by Hydro-Quebec all over the world in long-distance applications.
Maine now requires such lines underground in state corridors. Is NH that dumb?

jonstah wrote:

07/19/2013

Not really Lucky48.... but they're that cheap!

Lucky48 wrote:

07/19/2013

Well, jonstah, somebody ought to tell them that if NP buries its line in state corridors, like I93, the state of NH will collect transmission fees estimated to be around $50-100 MILLION per year. That's what our crafty neighbors in Maine have figured out and are doing with their energy projects.
I repeat my question. Is NH that dumb?

I_love_NH wrote:

07/19/2013

Thanks to Matt Bonner for having the vision and foresight to get the younger generations involved in something surely to affect us all over the next 50+ years. This is a unique issue in that it has united people from across the political spectrum in opposition to it. Now, younger people can also learn the truth about a proposal with potentially serious negative consequences for NH's future. Be sure to see it.

BestPresidentReagan wrote:

07/19/2013

Northern Pass like Keystone pipeline is a national ECONOMIC security issue and both need to be built NOW.......... the opponents have now proven by their comments that they are simply NIMBY VISUAL PURISTS.

TuskerDog wrote:

07/19/2013

Sail: If it's a national ECONOMIC security issue, bury it for reliability security as well like other states are requiring. Why destroy local economies for the sake of excess profits for Connecticut and Wall Street?

WLP1 wrote:

07/19/2013

The NIMBY VISUAL PURISTS seem to be standing for what they know and believe is right. The last report I read ... thousands and thousands of PURISTS are dumping PSNH. Looks like the Keystone isn't fairing too well either. This is just the beginning of the end of corporate corruption. Might be fun "sail" if you set sail and follow the gang down river. Be prepared because you may be the only one to bail them out.